About the Perseid meteor shower:
The Perseid is the most famous of all meteor showers. It never fails to provide an impressive display and, due to its summertime appearance, tends to provide the majority of meteors seen by non-astronomy enthusiasts. There are other, weaker meteor showers going on around the same time as the Perseids, but the Perseids will generally appear to move much faster across the sky than meteors from the other showers. In fact, the Perseids are among the fastest moving meteors we see every year. Another way to know if the meteor you saw was a Perseid is to mentally trace the meteor backwards. If you end up at Perseus then you have probably seen a Perseid meteor!

What is a meteor shower?
An increase in the number of meteors at a particular time of year is called a meteor shower. Comets shed the debris that becomes most meteor showers. As comets orbit the Sun, they shed an icy, dusty debris stream along the comet's orbit. If Earth travels through this stream, we will see a meteor shower. Depending on where Earth and the stream meet, meteors appear to fall from a particular place in the sky, maybe within the neighborhood of a constellation.

How did “Perseid” get its name?
Meteor showers are named by the constellation from which meteors appear to fall, a spot in the sky astronomers call the radiant. For instance, the radiant for the Leonid meteor shower is located in the constellation Leo. The Perseid meteor shower is so named because meteors appear to fall from a point in the constellation Perseus.